Watching the US political drama the West Wing one night, Ed Miliband found he had something in common with Josh Lyman, who plays the deputy White House chief of staff. Both, Miliband says, have been exasperated by the infighting within the energy industry.

The energy and climate change secretary recounts the episode in which Lyman crashes his SUV into a Prius, symbol of the environmentally conscious. As penance for such sacrilege, the White House staffer has to attend an industry summit where people are promoting different low-carbon technologies. "They end up having a big fall-out with each other," Miliband says. "Sometimes the UK debate feels a bit like that: the renewables lot say you should only do renewables and shouldn't do nuclear or coal. Nuclear people say all this wind will lead to big problems. Coal people say, 'Why are you going on about renewables and nuclear?'"

On Wednesday Miliband will publish a white paper outlining how the UK will make the transition to a low-carbon economy. Companies of all shades of green are on tenterhooks, waiting to find out if their lobbying for subsidies (although they would never profess to use such a dirty word) for their industry or particular technology has been successful. Everyone has an opinion on how best to solve climate change.

This week, it was the turn of the CBI. The business group told Miliband to water down the target to produce about a third of the UK's electricity by 2020 from renewables such as wind. It claims this will jeopardise plans to build low-carbon forms of generation such as nuclear reactors and clean coal plants.

Miliband says: "You have to be ambitious on nuclear. I know that's hard for some people." It's brave, not just because he risks incurring the wrath of the environmentalists, but also that of his family. His brother David, the foreign secretary, is president of Sera, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association, a staunch opponent of nuclear power. Their father, Ralph, campaigned for nuclear disarmament. "I didn't grow up in a terribly pro-nuclear family, as you can imagine. But lots of people have changed their mind about nuclear as a result of climate change."

Miliband calls himself a "hard-headed environmentalist", not favouring one technology over the other. "Hard-headed environmentalism is about saying we're not going to operate on the basis of preconceived notions," he says.

The white paper will unveil the world's first legally binding carbon budgets, which will eventually commit the UK to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. In April, the chancellor outlined the first five-year budgets. Between 2008 and 2012, the country is required to cut its emissions by 22%, ratcheting up to 34% in 2022. If the UK exceeds the limit, it will have to buy in credits from overseas, but Miliband stresses that the aim is to stay within the budget by domestic reductions only.

He says that this will revolutionise policymaking: "Every major policy will be scrutinised for its carbon impact. Government will have to operate within a carbon budget in the same way it has to operate in a financial budget. If we go over the carbon budget, there will be financial penalties – that is going to be a big cultural change across government."

Not all the government's decisions are predicated on the need to slash emissions, as the decision to approve a third runway at Heathrow demonstrated. Miliband was said to be one of the cabinet voices who spoke out most strongly against the plans, although he has never publicly dissented. Instead, he argues that increased emissions from aviation can be accommodated within the carbon budgets by, for example, promoting sustainable forms of transport, such as electric cars.

Not surprisingly, Miliband isn't too impressed by David Cameron's professed support for renewables. The wind farm that Miliband opened on Monday – built by RWE npower renewables at Little Cheyne Court in Kent and the largest onshore wind farm in the south-east – was opposed by the local Tory MP and former home secretary Michael Howard. The Tories also want to abolish the new central planning commission designed to help projects like wind farms overcome local opposition.

Miliband says: "It is not coherent to say you are in favour of renewable energy, which they say they are, to oppose our planning reform and for local councils all over the place to oppose the building of wind farms."

He is optimistic about the chances of avoiding catastrophic climate change. You have to give people "green hope, not green despair", he says, by explaining what they can do to help.